


Running

by IzabellaRiddle



Series: 26 Stargate Related Deaths [6]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 04:25:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4990141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IzabellaRiddle/pseuds/IzabellaRiddle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The city fell...it's been twenty years since the SGC has been back to the Pegasus galaxy. They hope to find survivors of the expedition team and just how the Wraith were defeated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running

**Author's Note:**

> A part of my Stargate releated deaths series. I own nothing of the show but for anything you don't recognize from it.

He wanted to stop so badly...but he knew he couldn't risk it...he had to keep going. As he pulled a turn around a line of trees he pushed his hair out of his face. No one would recognize him anymore...he had changed so much in the last three years.

 

The sight of a set of ruins ahead of him nearly had him stopping. This little village had been one of survivors from other planets who had settled here on this planet where they thought they would be safe. It had all been destroyed near the beginning of the war. All those who had lived here had either been killed or kulled.

 

He remembered them after a few moments. They had made some of the best bread like food he'd tasted in the Pegasus galaxy. The secret of it is lost now as is much of the culture of the people in this galaxy.

 

His feet took him around the far side of the city ruins and once again he found himself pelting through the massive forest that makes up this world. He needed to reach his destination before the wraith managed to get through the gate.

 

The disjointed fingers of his left hand came up to his neck of their own accord. Checking almost absentmindedly for the chain he knew would be there. It reminded him of a better time and of those he had lost in the last few years.

 

Their base on Atlantis had been under siege for months before it happened. The ships of Earth hadn't been able to help as they were trying to keep the Ori from taking over the Milky Way galaxy. Atlantis was lost to them and most of her people were killed.

 

The last of them had been taken by the Wraith and set lose to run. On that first planet they had been with two other groups of survivors. It was decided that they would split up and try and take as many Wraith out as possible.

 

His group left the planet last after sending off the others. The first group was Major Lorne's team or what was left of it. Evan Lorne, Jennifer Keller, Dr. Parish, and Sgt. Hale. The other team became Sgt. Stackhouse's team, he would take Carson Beckett, Radek Zelenka, and Sgt. Mehra with him.

 

The first year the team went through to world's they already knew warning the people the Wraith were behind them and collecting gate addresses where the team could before moving on to the next planet before the Wraith could start out for wherever they were.

 

The second year is when it started to get bad. Teyla went first caught in a trap set by locals to more than likely catch game. She told them to leave...the Wraith were close and she wouldn't be free in time. They were forced to continue on without her. She had handed John her wedding band before they left. She didn't want the Wraith getting it. Kennan and Torren had been killed in the siege...her team, they were her only family left.

 

It was only a few months later that Ronon decided he'd had enough of running. He'd done it for too much of his left and didn't want to keep running. He disappeared through the gate one day taking forty something Wraith with him. He'd left his Satedan gun behind knowing he probably wasn't coming back.

 

It was just a month ago now that Rodney ended up alone. The accident had nearly killed both of them. The world they had been on was full of ice and snow. They didn't realize they were on a frozen lake until the ice started giving away.

 

John had pushed Rodney back toward shore and nearly got there himself before he fell through the shattering ice. Rodney pulled him out onto the shore but they both knew it was too late. With the gate guarded there was no way John was getting off the planet before hypothermia set in.

 

That had been the worst day of Rodney's life. Worse than loosing Atlantis, worse than loosing Teyla and Ronon, worse than running every day for his life. He lost his last teammate and friend that day. John had given him his dog-tags and Teyla's wedding ring which he'd threaded the chain through and Ronon's gun.

 

John had called the Wraith to him and taken off running away from the gate. That's how Rodney ended up here on this planet alone running through the dense forest with the Wraith not that far behind him.

 

Rodney had decided that this would be his final stand. He had gated to the planet with all the kids. He had thought about it over the years of running....now he knew how to fix the shield so it would also emit a fairly high level homing beacon. Any of the Earth ships would be able to pick it up as they entered the Pegasus Galaxy. Another plus it wouldn't drain the shield for generations to come.

 

It was some 20 years later that the visitors arrived at their quiet village walking in from a good bit away because of the shield. The four men were told to wait in the main hall when they asked about the shield and the signal it was sending out into the stars.

 

Not long after a young woman walked in and just waited for a moment watching them. They asked her once more about the signal and she smiled. She beckoned them to follow her and she led them through the town to a small place on the far edge of the village.

 

She stopped in front of a small stone marker and turned to them. Aleria told them of the man whose memory rested in the grave before them even though his body did not. He had come through the gate nearly 20 years before running from the evil that had plagued the galaxy. He sought refuge with her mother's people and stayed with them. It was her father who had created the signal that called to them to come here.

 

Her mother told her about him...a brillant man who saved the whole galaxy from the Wraith. Aleria couldn't tell them how he did it just that she remembered him working on it when she was little. Then one day he hugged her mother and kissed her goodbye. He hugged Aleria and handed her his most cherished items mines the old energy weapon. A beautiful ring of gold and silver, a long silver chain with a small set of metal pieces, and a cloth patch of red and with a leaf she'd never seen before on it.

 

Never again did they see him again but they saw the explosion in the sky...the burning debris of the Hive ship that had been destroyed above their planet. She then handed them a letter and left them there at the small grave. The eldest of the men in the group...their commander sighed and opened the letter.

 

_To whom ever may end up reading this,_

_I, Dr. Rodney McKay, leave this letter behind to tell anyone who may come from the Milky Way looking for the city of Atlantis what has happened._

_It's been some ten years now that I have been here with the villagers. Keras was almost pleased to see me all those years ago...he was saddened to hear of what happened to my team who had befriended him long ago and saved his life. He even introduced me to Teraia who I eventually married._

_It took me years to find a way to defeat the Wraith but in the end it was Teraia who gave me an answer. As the last living member (as far as I know) of the Atlantis base I knew I had to do something about them. To protect my family and their future and in memory of my lost friends who I shall be seeing again soon._

_I have left my wife and daughter with the items entrusted to me by my friends. Lt. Colonel John Sheppard's dog tags. They are a symbol of the man, my best friend, who saved my life more times that I can remember and in the end gave his own to give me a chance to get away from the Wraith hunting us. The wedding ring of my friend Teyla Emmagan last member of the Athosian race, I leave for my daughter. I hope that she will become a strong and spirited woman much like my beloved friend who fought the Wraith for so much of her life. The only thing I take with me is the gun of my friend Specialist Ronon Dex of Sateda who left it with us when he took forty wraith with him through the gate on a suicide run._

_I hope that if someone from the SGC is reading this that they will find a way to have them remembered....to have all those lost on Atlantis remembered. The Wraith have been stopped and Pegasus is now safe. I ask that Earth might try again to set up an outpost here in this galaxy to help the worlds that have been ravaged by them for so long. For the human race as it is now to become better than what the Ancients left us to be._

_Sincerely,_

_Meredith Rodney Mckay_

_Last runner of Atlantis_

 

_P.S if you can find my sister Jeannie Miller or her daughter Madison please let them know what has happened to me. If they are still alive I would hope that knowing might bring them some closure to them._

 

The man sighed and refolded the letter before turning to his men. Ordering them back to the beam up sight for the ship before turning to find the young woman standing about 100 feet away obviously waiting for him to finish reading.

 

He walked quietly over to her and thanked her for the letter....that not knowing what had happened to their people had saddened them all greatly, especially those that had served on Atlantis and then went home to Earth before contact was lost.

 

She smiled and nodded quietly telling him she was sorry that she didn't have better news for him but that the stories her father told would stay on in their people and many worlds in the Pegasus Galaxy would know the name of the man who had defeated the Wraith and those that had been lost in the fight.

 

Captain Eugene Bates thanked her and quickly headed back to his ship taking the letter with him. They would travel on to the planet where Atlantis had been last located and see if they could find any signs of other survivors but somehow he knew that they would find no one. Those that he had once served with in Atlantis had all gone before him. Maybe someday he would see them all again but for now he would check their home world and then head back to Earth. Eugene would make sure that the names of those lost on Atlantis would never been forgotten on Earth...the planet they never returned home to.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and please review


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